A new study shows states with the strictest abortion laws also offer the least amount of social support to children, women and families. Idaho is no exception, and provides the least access to healthcare, paid maternal leave, and food and childcare assistance.
The study published in the American Journal of Public Health looked at the percentage of people living in maternal care deserts, Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women, and income requirements for families to receive social assistance.
Researchers looked at where states fared by looking at 11 different social programs that directly benefit poor families, such as WIC, the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and TANF, the state-funded program offering temporary assistance to needy families.
Of the 21 most restrictive states, the study found Idaho offered the fewest options for children and parents experiencing economic hardships. It also found the state makes it harder for children and mothers to qualify for state-funded help and offers less financial support for those who qualify.
"It would seem in these states that the abortion opponent, pro-life attitude not only begins at conception but ends there as well."
Co-author Katie Watson, a bioethicist at Northwestern University, said the study tried to answer the question: “Do the states that are banning abortion actually value children and motherhood?”
“The states that are most likely to ban abortions are also the states that are most likely to have disproportionate numbers of impoverished people of reproductive age, who are the most likely to need abortion care and have the worst track record for funding and supporting impoverished children and families,” she said.
Watson said that’s hypocritical.
“When people say that they want to ban abortion because they care about children, but the pro-child attitude seems to begin at conception and then end there as well, what it suggests to me is that there are other agendas being driven,” she said, adding the study highlights abortion bans are perhaps not about helping children but “more about the control of women and pregnant people, and enforcing a social norm that women's primary or obligatory role is to be mothers.”
Studies show about half the women who seek abortions live under the poverty line and 75% report struggling to pay for basic needs. In surveys conducted before the repeal of Roe v. Wade, 40% of women cited not being able to afford having a baby as the main reason for terminating their pregnancies.
“Abortion bans are likely to increase these financial barriers because more individuals will be required to travel out of state to receive care or to delay care until a later point in pregnancy, resulting in higher procedural costs,” the study reads. “These increased costs are often insurmountable barriers to those who are financially disadvantaged.”
Since 2022, Idaho law bans abortions in all cases with exceptions for rape and incest and when the life of the mother is endangered.
